The Sun Eater: Demon in White by: Christopher Ruocchio

 

What is fascinating about The Sun Eater is that as a series it is spanning an incredibly long period of time but still following a central protagonist which is a trick to pull off well.  Demon in White is the third installment to build the series further into the future of Hadrian Marlowe and feels as if this is the point where Hadrian is reaching the apex of his power before the dreaded reputation will actually surface.  Much of the novel is concerned with Hadrian as the Halfmortal and dealing with the emotional fallout of Howling Dark, but Christopher Ruocchio as an author has finally pulled off the trick of making his extended narrative actually feel focused for the entire novel.  If there was something holding back Empire of Silence and Howling Dark it’s that both novels had at least one major diversion from the plot or one transitionary sequence that doesn’t quite work, but Demon in White has none of that.  Hadrian is thrust back into the world of nobility and cannot avoid those responsibilities, he is given a squire in Alexander and engaged to the heir to the throne while still being in love with Valka, this being a classic marriage proposal for political reasons.  Hadrian of course makes some of the same mistakes because despite every change he has undergone, he hasn’t fundamentally changed as a person despite the journey he’s going on seeing his position in the universe changing.  This is a novel that deepens Hadrian’s place in the universe and how the universe itself is toying with him, making him the demon and Halfmortal that the people have declared him.  Ruocchio has set up Hadrian to fall in a universe that is bigger than him, the Chantry drawing on Dune for its influence and Ruocchio specifically honing in on the general hypocrisy of the religion which uses technology.  It’s an idea Ruocchio introduced explicitly in the short stories preceding this third novel.

 

The way Hadrian uses his privilege in this novel is of particular interest for where the novel goes.  He clearly does not wish to be a mentor to Alexander, but is assigned the young royal as his squire which places Alexander in the center of the narrative.  Alexander is written as a rich child, perceived very much as a spoiled rich kid paralleling the way Hadrian was seen by the reader in Empire of Silence, but Hadrian in the mentor role is one that he is clearly not suited for.  There is a moment where Hadrian breaks Alexander’s vision of him, a small moment in the grand scheme of the novel and one that relies on a trope of overhearing Hadrian complain about how Alexander isn’t wanted.  Hadrian as a character would rather not deal with the royal family and the only portion of the novel where he seems actually at home is reuniting with Tor Gibson who by coincidence is alive and studying where Hadrian can find the answers to what made him Halfmortal.  It’s perhaps the longest sequence in the novel and the one where he is genuinely at peace with the universe, integrating Ruocchio’s general sense of stretching time and giving into the fantastical of the universe.  Ruocchio obviously already established this as the human race in the future, but there are several points where the reader will realize exactly what happened to “modern” Earth history in the future with the idea of the Quiet as essentially technogods.  There is also the Mericanii technology obviously being American, an obvious example of language decay.   Ruocchio also wears his influences on his sleeve with subtle references to essentially every other major science fiction series that you can think of.

 

Overall, Demon in White is actually a novel that largely deserves its title and justifies its length.  It’s the longest installment of The Sun Eater so far yet Christopher Ruocchio has put in the work to refine his pacing to make the novel cohesive.  The climax which takes up basically the last 200 pages of the novel, give or take, is particularly interesting as it sets up Hadrian in the position for his actual fall.  His politicking ends up taking him down a peg and pushing people away who almost wish he would intervene and make them say.  Ruocchio is beginning to snowball the tragedy of The Sun Eater and makes this one his best installment.  10/10.